When the Wildcats of Louisville High School rallied to take at 15-14 win over Poplarville on Saturday, Dec. 5 to win the MHSAA Class 4A State Football Championship it set the bar so high that it is likely no other team than the Wildcats themselves could ever top it. Not South Panola. Not West Point. Not Noxubee County. Not anybody. In fact, there is one accomplishment that only Louisville High School will ever be able to claim. When the ‘Cats claimed the 2020 title they became the only school to EVER win an official MHSAA state football championship in every decade of the playoff era, which began in 1981. Louisville won two in the 1980s (1985 and 1986), three in the 1990s (1991, 1993, 1995), two in the 2000s (2007 2008); two in the 2010s (2013, 2018), and then the title in 2020. That is unbreakable. The only school that can possibly continue to win a title in every decade is Louisville itself. But there is a mark, to me at least, that is even more impressive. While Louisville, with 10 championships, is still one shy of tying South Panola an dWest Point for the most ever at 11, neither of those programs, or any that have played in at least five state championship games has done what Louisville has done. The Wildcats are 10-0 in state title games. That’s 10 wins, zero losses. Zilch. Nada. Not nary a one That is a near impossibility. While somebody could possible tie or surpass that mark, it’s not likely. At least not anytime soon. For another school to break it, they would have to have never played in a state championship game at this point, then win 11 without losing one. It is likely that the only school that could ever go 11-0, 12,-0, or better is Louisville High School itself. There are a lot of remarkable pieces of information about Louisville’s run to 10 Gold Balls. One is that those 10 teams had seven different head coaches. Another is that only twice have they won back-to-back. South Panola won five state titles from 2003-2007 and West Point won four from 2016-2019. Louisville’s back-to-back wins came under the helm of Mike Justice in 1985 and 1986 and Brad Peterson in 2007 and 2008. And here, to me, other than the 10-0 mark in title games, is the most interesting piece of information. Only one of those championship teams went undefeated. That was the 2013 team that went 16-0. One of the reasons is that Louisville has notoriously played a tough non-region schedule, facing the likes of West Point, Starkville, Tupelo, Clarksdale, Noxubee County, etc., in huge early-season games before district play even began. Old-timers (which I am now one of), will tell you that Louisville High School’s football greatness began long before LHS won its first MHSAA title in 1985 or even before sanctioned playoffs began in 1981. In fact, I am among MANY who were alive and kicking and following Louisville football in the 1970s that would tell you that they would have won at least one state title in that decade had there been an opportunity to do so. One of the most legendary pre-playoff teams is the 1971 squad lead by the likes of Tim Ellis, Ray Hisaw, Earl ‘Boo Jack’ Carter, and Willie Love (among many others), that went 11-0 and won the Choctaw Conference title. They just flat out destroyed folks. Next year will be the 50th anniversary of that team, and here is a least one person who is hoping the school sees fit to honor that team at some point during the 2021 season. And I am sure there were teams in each decade before that that timers even older than I would be quick to hand a Gold Ball too. And then there is Camille High School, which before integration was one of the most feared football teams in the state among the all-black high schools. The history is there. And to be honest, it’s not just at LHS. All four football playing schools in Winston County (Nanih Waiya, Noxapater, and Winston Academy) have won at least one state title and all have played in multiple title games. Due to COVID-19 quarantine I wasn’t able to attend this year’s state championship game, but I kept up with it. And I knew when the fourth quarter came around and Louisville was close to Poplarville that the Wildcats would win. I knew it. The Louisville football team was sure of it. And the Poplarville team probably suspected it. It was important to come back 10-0. Over my years of covering LHS, especially when the tradition of winning state titles moved into the turn of the century, there was a consensus I would always get when interviewing the Wildcat players the week before their journey to state title game. It was this — they could not and would not be the first LHS team to come back home from the title game without the Gold Ball. It just wasn’t going to happen. That’s what happened in the final quarter and waning moments of the 2020 game. Even though LHS was behind 14-7 on the scoreboard with less than a minute left in the game, they were ahead in their hearts. And that, in the hearts of those young men who were determined NOT to lose, is where the game was won. And the tradition continues. Austin Bishop is a multi-award winning columnist/writer and has been covering high school, college, youth and professional sports since 1975 and has been sports editor for multiple newspapers in the state of Mississippi. He can be reached by email at starsportsboss.com.
